Apr 2020
Now that Tromafreak mentioned the movie in his top 100 (calling it the best horror from the last 20 years or one of the best) and it's still in the running in the movie KO on MovieMeter, again a certain question popped up. One I have been wondering about not long after I had seen the movie the first (and still the only) time.
I had been critical of the movie. I reckon it is shocking. And I must say I was into it until about 45-50 minutes. I'm not saying it was great but it kept me curious enough to know what it was all about. And the revelation came why these girls were tortured to death. I was like yeah all right (still wondering if the motivation of the bad guys was either clever or just plain stupid but in the end I went for the latter) now we know and we still have like 30 or more minutes to go?
I was like the only thing that can happen next is that our main girl is going to endure similar torturings the old lady had been talking about. And that's what happened and as expected she was going to be that chosen one who could make the revelation the whole organisation was waiting for. The viewer waited for nothing since the old lady doesn't reveal anything and just commits suicide.
Of course those beatings and the crap she has to eat are not fun to watch but it gets so repetitive that its becomes tedious and boring (instead of shocking me more). It became more of an annoying exercise in patience to see if there is still anything interesting the movie could tell me. That didn't happen. For me it didn't matter if those scenes went on 5 minutes or half an hour. I already knew why, I already got the point, get on with it. I don't see the purpose to stretching it to such length with that knowledge you already gave me. To shock me until I looked way, well that didn't work. The movie went pretty fast from the start but the revelation came way too early, it stagnated and came pretty much to a halt and eventually there was no conclusion. Ok all in my point of view of course
Similar feelings I had with the final scene of Megan is Missing. It sucked for the girl but after 1 minute I knew she is not going to be rescued there is no point in stretching that scene for so long (to me anyway).
Anyway that's what I been wondering, no one else expected the main girl was going to be tortured? I haven't read or heard anyone predicting this.
I don't think I lack empathy but I think I'm still too aware I'm just watching a movie. Yesterday the local news showed some images of people in Ecuador literally dead on the street because of the Corona virus. That was very shocking to me.
I had been critical of the movie. I reckon it is shocking. And I must say I was into it until about 45-50 minutes. I'm not saying it was great but it kept me curious enough to know what it was all about. And the revelation came why these girls were tortured to death. I was like yeah all right (still wondering if the motivation of the bad guys was either clever or just plain stupid but in the end I went for the latter) now we know and we still have like 30 or more minutes to go?
I was like the only thing that can happen next is that our main girl is going to endure similar torturings the old lady had been talking about. And that's what happened and as expected she was going to be that chosen one who could make the revelation the whole organisation was waiting for. The viewer waited for nothing since the old lady doesn't reveal anything and just commits suicide.
Of course those beatings and the crap she has to eat are not fun to watch but it gets so repetitive that its becomes tedious and boring (instead of shocking me more). It became more of an annoying exercise in patience to see if there is still anything interesting the movie could tell me. That didn't happen. For me it didn't matter if those scenes went on 5 minutes or half an hour. I already knew why, I already got the point, get on with it. I don't see the purpose to stretching it to such length with that knowledge you already gave me. To shock me until I looked way, well that didn't work. The movie went pretty fast from the start but the revelation came way too early, it stagnated and came pretty much to a halt and eventually there was no conclusion. Ok all in my point of view of course
Similar feelings I had with the final scene of Megan is Missing. It sucked for the girl but after 1 minute I knew she is not going to be rescued there is no point in stretching that scene for so long (to me anyway).
Anyway that's what I been wondering, no one else expected the main girl was going to be tortured? I haven't read or heard anyone predicting this.
I don't think I lack empathy but I think I'm still too aware I'm just watching a movie. Yesterday the local news showed some images of people in Ecuador literally dead on the street because of the Corona virus. That was very shocking to me.
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Martyrs certainly has its merits and I do think the director did a really good job until the revelation. Maybe I just don't buy into the violence that is portrayed isn't there just for the shock but it as a deeper meaning, it does have a purpose theory. Same with High Tension the movie was pretty dumb but brutal and entertaining but than there was this old almost predictable twist that the director popped in at the end. It's rather funny that some people think it made sense while there was no way it could. Dreams and it was all in the head yeah that's too easy, you can explain anything that way. That's not creative any more IMO.
Obviously it did make a lot of people uncomfortable. To me all that violence and torture pretty much loses its purpose when they come up with this idea we do it for some kind of higher cause (a peek into a possible afterlife). I find it much scarier and shocking when people get killed because of a sick individual loves doing so or nature and viruses who take lives with no regard to status, gender, age or whatever.